


Your Kisses Taste Like Chocolate

by OnstageSport



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Race and Albert are not Supportive Friends TM, Second-Hand Embarrassment, Teen for a couple of swears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 21:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13257333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnstageSport/pseuds/OnstageSport
Summary: Davey runs a kissing booth at the college charity fair. Jack gets a little overzealous.





	1. Chapter 1

“Yeah, so the Charity Fair is in a week and, as your student government repre—”

“Are _you_ in the student government, Davey? We had no idea,” Albert snorted, nudging Race in the side to get him to join in on the giggles.

Davey fixed them with a stone cold glance. It did not have the sobering effect he had intended as they kept snickering at his expense for a few more seconds.

“Are you finished?” he asked. He turned his stare around the rest of the lunch table, daring anyone else to make the joke. No one did. “ _Anyway_ , as your student government representative, I highly encourage you to go. We have a lot of great causes!”

“See, Dave, thing is,” Jack pointed out, brandishing a spoon of pudding towards Davey. “We’re a bunch of broke college kids. We should be _receiving_ charity, not giving it out.”

Davey flushed slightly. He knew that he was a little better off than most of his friends, though not by much. He started to stammer out another encouragement, something about paying it forward or karma or something, when Elmer interrupted with a truly inspired thought.

“Why call it the Charity Fair when you could call it the ‘Fairity’?”

Everyone slowly turned at stared at him, each of their faces frozen in identical disbelief. Jack smacked the back of his head playfully.

The silence allowed for Davey to use his last-ditch attempt to get them to support _anything_ at the Charity Fair.

“There’s a kissing booth!”

He honestly thought that would appeal to them. The snorts and snickers spread around the table, with some louder laughter sprinkled in, indicated otherwise.

“Oh, sure,” Jack laughed. “Hate to see what poor sucker got roped into that gig.” 

Around him, there were nods and other affirmations. Davey felt his face flush and he swallowed hard.

“Ha…that would be me,” he said bashfully, raising his hand. 

This caused another round of laughter, everyone finding this to be a joke. It only died down when Jack held out his hands, noting that Davey was the only one not laughing about it.

“You’re serious?” he asked. “Dead-ass?”

“Dead-ass,” Davey repeated somberly. He quickly checked the time on his phone and found that it was close enough to his next class that he could leave the increasingly uncomfortable lunch table.

As he left, Race and Albert blew loud kisses after him, having a ball with this information. Once he was gone, they turned back to the table, evil glints in their eyes.

“No,” Jack shot down the idea before it even left their mouths.

“C’mon,” Race simpered, pouting at him. “It’s for _charity_. It ain’t our fault you haven’t kissed him before us.”

Jack glowered at them, but Race just smiled cheekily at him. It was at that moment that Jack decided he needed new friends.


	2. Chapter 2

A week later, the Charity Fair was set up in the square in front of the Union Building. There were a bunch of different games, attractions, and concessions all boasting incredibly reasonable prices in hopes of garnering more customers to spare their change for the causes.

Jack and Crutchie were just passing through on their way to class, Jack casting his glance around trying to find the kissing booth and Crutchie mocking him for it.

“Be a little more obvious, why don’t you?” he laughed. “You want some binoculars?”

Jack scoffed at him and muttered a weak, “Shuddup.”

His heart froze when he finally spotted the booth advertising kisses for 25¢. There Davey was, manning the mostly empty booth. His only customers were Race and Albert, who seemed to be making light conversation with him.

Jack paused, his jaw set with determination. Crutchie recognized the look and poked Jack’s knee with one of his crutches.

“We’re gonna be late,” he warned, though he knew it didn’t matter to Jack once he’d made up his mind.

“Yeah, just hold on a minute,” Jack mumbled, brushing the concern aside as he started towards the booth.

“I’m not waiting for you!” Crutchie called after him, but Jack didn’t seem to notice. He was walking faster now that Race was leaning on the booth, smiling up at a now-laughing Davey.

On his way over, he dug into his wallet and pulled out a $5 bill that had definitely had a long life. It was a shorter endeavor to name the ways it hadn’t been creased and the texture indicated that Jack had left it in his pocket before sending the pants through the wash cycle at least three times. But it was more than adequate, in his opinion.

As soon as he arrived at the booth, he slammed the bill down without saying so much as a ‘hello.’ Davey only had time to look between the money and Jack, his face riddled with confusion, before Jack had slammed their mouths together. This was met with howling, squawking laughter from Race and Albert, but Jack elected to ignore them…as difficult as that may be. 

The kiss was not at all like Jack had imagined his first kiss with Davey. Sure, he didn’t have an exact image of how it was supposed to go, but in his mind, Davey was an active participant and Jack hadn’t just suddenly grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him across the counter of a kissing booth (that he just now realized must be digging uncomfortably into Davey’s stomach).

Jack let go of him and saw Davey, completely red, with his slightly puffy mouth agape and his eyes wide with surprise. Beside him, the entire event had taken Race and Albert down, crouched over in their laughing fits.

Jack swallowed hard, staring back at Davey. He had no idea what to say. Plus, his mouth was dry and he couldn’t think straight.

“…f’rchairty,” his mouth finally said. And he hated that that was what came out. Not only was it incomprehensible but that would just brush aside the whole thing as disingenuous.

Davey just blinked at him, clearly not understanding what Jack had said—not that Jack could blame him. Then he muttered a quick “Oh!” and nodded.

He dug in a large plastic bowl he had resting on the counter, counting and recounting as he excruciatingly tried to remember how to do math. Jack watched him in confusion. Once he had finally gotten to the right number, Dave finally turned back to him, offering him his hands.

“Dija…Um, sorry, I…” Davey regained his composure and swallowed hard. “Did you want your kisses or…?”

Jack stared at Davey’s outstretched hands with a collection of neatly wrapped Hershey’s kisses nearly pouring out of them.

Jack felt his entire bloodstream go cold. And this just rekindled the barely died down laughter from Jack’s supposed friends.

“I…” What was he supposed to do here? “Nah. Nah, keep ‘em.” He started to walk away but he turned back and awkwardly gestured between the two of them. “Sorry.”

And with that Jack stalked away from the quad, his own face aflame and his embarrassment taking root in his core, the laughter fading into the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

Jack deliberately avoided Davey for the rest of the day. How was he supposed to face him after that? He tried to come up with something halfway decent to say to him, but beyond apologizing, he had nothing. He was silently grateful that the incident had occurred after their typical lunchtime because the whole meal would have been dominated with that news. It probably still would be the next day.

Jack had been so proud of himself for managing to go the rest of the day without seeing Davey, only to have that ruined the second he returned to his dorm room. There was Davey, sitting at Crutchie’s desk, in the middle of explaining his answer to some question they had been discussing.

Jack couldn’t run—he lived there. He also couldn’t kick Davey out—he was Crutchie’s guest. But he couldn’t just ignore Davey’s presence—that would be weird and rude. So he settled for a brief but not unfriendly “hey” as he passed them on the way to his bed.

“Hey,” Davey responded equally coldly.

“Such animosity,” Crutchie commented with a laugh. He then teased, “Bad kiss?”

Both boys involved with that kiss stared at him with utmost horror—Davey seemed betrayed, as though he had confided in Crutchie only to have him spill the beans at the first possible moment, and Jack seemed more angry that Crutchie would bring up the one topic that he didn’t want to talk about.

“What?” Crutchie snorted, looking between the two of them. “I mean, it’s not like you guys don’t know. You were both there.” He suddenly gasped and looked between them, changing his demeanor completely. “It wasn’t a secret, was it?”

Neither Davey nor Jack found this as funny as Crutchie did.

“Tough crowd,” Crutchie noted, returning to his homework.

After a few tense seconds, Jack and Davey followed suit, unsure what else to do. They operated in near silence, Davey a lot more self-conscious about his answers to the questions Crutchie asked now that Jack was there, for nearly an hour when he and Crutchie completed their work. In that time, Jack had started and scrapped no less than three sketches for his art class. He gave up and simply doodled on the pages, thinking about if he wanted to talk to Davey about what had happened or not.

By the time Davey and Crutchie had finished their homework nearly an hour and a half later, Jack had made his decision. If nothing else, he was going to apologize for misinterpreting what the booth had been for and he’d gotten a little ahead of himself.

“I think it’s about time I get going,” Davey nodded after several more minutes had passed with no less awkwardness, checking his phone.

“I’ll walk you down,” Jack offered, gathering all of his courage.

Davey looked at him in surprise and started assuring him that that wasn’t necessary, that he could manage the few flights down by himself.

“Fine, then I wanna talk to you,” Jack gave up holding any pretense. “Can I do _that_ then?”

Davey hesitated only for a moment before deciding to allow it. He gathered his school supplies into his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and headed towards the door, Jack following quickly behind him.

They were silent through the hall and down to the first landing. Davey had taken a few more steps before Jack called him back up to the landing. He leaned casually against the wall, going for a more laid-back look than his fast-beating heart would portray

“Here?” Davey asked skeptically, judging Jack only slightly for his choice as he climbed back to join him. He stood in front of Jack, inadvertently blocking the path down.

But Jack’s mind was too caught up in his own apology and their sudden closeness to notice.

“Look, Dave, I didn’t realize what the whole gimmick was and I figured, yanno, ‘a kissing booth’s a kissing booth,’ and I saw Race and Albert over there—and they’d been being assholes about the whole thing last week—so I just walked over and...well, you know what I did.”

Davey slowly nodded as he understood everything Jack was saying to him.

“Jack, you-”

“Excuse me,” a girl trying to get by them on the stairs requested meekly. Davey instinctively stepped forward, practically into Jack, to allow her to pass.

Both boys immediately corrected themselves into a less compromising position as soon as she had gone by. Davey stood beside Jack against the wall, trying to take up as little space as he possibly could. Jack sighed and moved to stand in front of Davey, needing to look him in the face for the rest of the conversation. He figured they were out of the way enough that they wouldn’t have to press against each other for anyone to pass again.

“You didn’t have to apologize,” Davey stated, almost too low to hear. “I mean, yeah I was shocked and that wasn’t how I expected our first ki—um, _my_ first kiss to go and you probably bruised my gum or something, but it’s fine.” Since he felt that he had said that far too bitterly, he tried to lighten the mood by giving Jack his cheekiest grin and saying, “If you wanted to kiss me so bad, you could have just asked.”

Jack rolled his eyes and huffed out a laugh.

“Wow, anyone can just ask for a kiss,” he teased.

“Did I say ‘anyone’?” Davey asked him as somberly as he could manage. Even then, his smile broke through.

All traces of joking slipped from Jack’s face and were replaced with confusion, elation, wariness, and then confusion again.

“Okay, considering the misunderstandings of today alone, I’m gonna need you to be a little clearer,” Jack insisted.

Davey, in a burst of courage he hadn’t anticipated, stepped forward and tentatively pressed his lips to Jack’s. Unlike that afternoon’s, this kiss was slow, both of them moving in tandem, their instincts melding perfectly.

“I think I got it,” Jack nodded, laughing once they finally separated. He narrowed his eyes in confusion before running his tongue over his lips.

“What?” Davey asked him, barely holding it together.

“You taste like chocolate.”

“Oh. There were some left over kisses,” Davey explained with a smile.

All Jack said was “Ironic” before leaning in to kiss him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing in character? I don't know her


End file.
